Written on April 19th, 2006 at 10:04 am by Darren Rowse
ProBlogger Moves to Publishing Full Feeds
As I mentioned buried away in my last post - I’ve just started a trial of publishing full feeds here at ProBlogger.
I’m not going to rehash my reasons for doing so but wanted to announce it in a post of it’s own so that everyone is on the same page.
This will mean that those of you who are used to and like the ‘excerpts’ are going to start seeing full posts which I understand will annoy some. Depending upon your News Aggregator some of you might have the option to subscribe to only see excerpts - others of you might need to get used to scrolling a little more.
As I say above - this is a trial. I’m doing it as a response to a poll of readers that I conducted a few months ago which said that the majority of you wanted it but also on a hunch that it might be worth the trouble. I will be tracking things on a number of fronts including:
- RSS Subscriber Levels - currently at 5242
- Blog Visitor Levels - currently averaging between 4000 - 5500 visitors a day
- Content Theft - I currently find a few site’s republishing without in what I see as unethical ways each week
After a month or two I’ll make a decision as to whether to keep publishing full feeds or whether to return to partial ones.
I hope that this experimental transition does not cause too much grief for anyone.
PS: I’ve also taken the decision to experiment with Feedburner’s RSS ads in my feed now that it’s full feed. Another experiment which I’ll keep you up to date on.
43 Responses to “ProBlogger Moves to Publishing Full Feeds”
James
April 19th, 2006 10:45 am
Excellent! Please keep regardless of what happens :)
Jonathan Bailey
April 19th, 2006 10:51 am
First off, I’m glad that you made the switch. I think your readers will be appreciative and, in my own theory, truncated feeds only offer slight protection against content theft and, very soon, will be made obsolete by new scraping technology that can actually scrape from the permalink.
However, since you’re messing around with Feedburner, be sure to use Feedflare if you aren’t already. The attribution addon can help ensure that anyone who does scrape your content will also scrape the attributing information for the post.
Also, the Uncommon Uses feature is a great way to fight splogging and other content scrapers. I’d check that list at least daily.
Finally, if you are having a major problem with content theft in the future and want help with it, you can always just drop me a line. I’m always eager to help wherever I can.
Good luck with your experiments!
Darren Rowse
April 19th, 2006 11:00 am
thanks Jonathan - I’d just added the attribution flare and a copyright one and regularly check uncommon uses. It was these things that helped me move forward with the decision.
Mike Sansone
April 19th, 2006 11:20 am
Sweet! Thank you for the full feed. I’m more likely to comment now because of it. (Hope I didn’t just jinx it and compel you back to partial feeds). Thanks again.
Cary
April 19th, 2006 11:26 am
Good luck with your experiment, Darren…I’ll be interested to see how it turns out.
@ Mike — I was just wondering why full feeds would make you more likely to comment?
Steve
April 19th, 2006 11:46 am
Fantastic news - yours was just about the only truncated feed I grudgingly kept subscribed to, having long since jettisoned any site that just teased me with a partial feed.
Chris
April 19th, 2006 11:50 am
I like the full feed. It saves a click and I think that sometimes I missed some good stuff that has come out.
Sue
April 19th, 2006 12:29 pm
You really have a great blog.
Software Gadgets
April 19th, 2006 1:23 pm
I switched from full feeds on my Software Gadgets blog to partial feeds a few weeks ago and visits to this relatively new blog went up over 400 percent — and have stayed up. However, I really like the idea of full feeds. If they work well for you, I will revisit the issue when my blog is better established. I have a guts feeling that full feeds hurt the average new blog, but could help many established blogs.
James M Woods
April 19th, 2006 2:14 pm
Thanks Darren, this is wonderful news. I very seldomly stay subscribed to partial feeds. Yours was one of the exceptions. I think you’ll increase your readership in the end. I hope you share your results with your readers :-)
Brian Benzinger
April 19th, 2006 2:18 pm
Wow. You would not believe how happy I was when I saw this. Just awesome!
By the way, when I switched my feeds to full, I expected less visitors to my site, less clicks, etc.. But, everything just got better! More visits, more clicks, more subscribers, and happier subscribers.
Hey, question… or more of a thought. RSS users are usually more tech savvy then say an average visitor. Some people say that switching to full-text is worse because less of your subscribers will come to your site and possibly click on an ad. But, because the visitors are tech savvy, won’t they most likey not click an ad either way? So really, there should be no worry about less clicks when going full-text… I suppose.
Devin
April 19th, 2006 2:31 pm
Hooray! I hope you keep up the earnings..
Beta Alfa 2.0 » Det största hotet för en författare är inte piratkopiering - det är okändheten
April 19th, 2006 2:39 pm
[...] ProBlogger: Moves to Publishing Full Feeds [...]
Darren Rowse
April 19th, 2006 2:40 pm
brian - I think that could be right.
Another theory - RSS readers are more tech savvy and are often bloggers themselves. The more of them you reach the more likely you are to get them linking to your blog from theirs which in itself brings benefits of more readers from the links and the SEO benefits…
Michele
April 19th, 2006 2:42 pm
I think the full feeds is a great idea, I personally prefer that format.
David Chartier
April 19th, 2006 2:53 pm
Awesome move with the full feed, and an ad in the post is a good idea too.
Brian Benzinger
April 19th, 2006 2:58 pm
Darren - Ah yes. That is very true as well. I actually have noticed an increase in link backs. I would also imagine that because of my non-creative side when it comes to titles of articles, the full content being shown attracts them to view the article more then a clicking a boring title in a excerpt to read it increasing the chance of a link back, getting added to delicious (using the FeedBurner buttons), etc.
I’m happy with full-feeds. I’m excited to hear how things work out for your site. Keep it up, too. Your blog has always been a favorite :-)
duncanriley.com » Going down the Full Feed path.
April 19th, 2006 2:58 pm
[...] You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your ownsite. [...]
Jason Gilman
April 19th, 2006 4:01 pm
Darren, I’d just like to echo what several other people have commented: you were one of the few truncated feeds that I continued to subscribe to and I’m really appreciative of the fact that you’ve decided to give this a go. My hunch is that it will prove to be a worthwhile move and I look forward to finding out whether this proves out when you do your trademark in depth analysis down the road.
John T Unger
April 19th, 2006 5:20 pm
I’m really happy to see full feeds. I rarely subscribe to partial feeds… the excerpts on their own aren’t worth reading, and they often don’t contain enough info for me to decide whether the full post is of interest. With all the competition for attention, I think full feeds will serve you much better in the long run.
Full feeds allow me to skim the full article or read it completely, which is far more useful. I save most of the posts I find of interest directly in my feed reader, which is another reason I appreciate a full feed. Really, the only reasons I *ever* visit blogs in a browser are to comment, bookmark, or blog an entry. Or when I find a new blog via a link, etc.
I hope you decide to stay with full feeds.
Michele
April 19th, 2006 5:35 pm
Did you switch them off already? All I’m getting is partials :(
Darren Rowse
April 19th, 2006 5:44 pm
that’s odd Michele - I am getting full feeds. Not sure if feedburner has updated with them yet or not….
George
April 19th, 2006 5:59 pm
I say keep the full feeds! Thanks mate!
Perhaps you should do a poll…
Darren Rowse
April 19th, 2006 6:19 pm
already did a poll George (and mentioned it in the post above as a reason for going with full feeds) - it was clear people wanted full feeds :-)
Michele
April 19th, 2006 6:32 pm
Darren - weird! It’s working fine in my other RSS reader, but Thunderbird only downloaded excerpts.. I’ll have a look at my settings this evening to see if I’ve done something odd :)
John T P
April 19th, 2006 9:05 pm
I prefer full feeds to partial ones. But why don’t you conduct a poll on the subject?
Darren Rowse
April 19th, 2006 10:17 pm
thanks for the feedback everyone.
and for those suggesting a poll - I’VE ALREADY DONE ONE!!!!! :-)
Martin
April 19th, 2006 11:21 pm
good work, its more useful this way
Sergio
April 20th, 2006 12:32 am
I fully agree with the change!
Specially in a blog like this one. The information provided is too essential to be cut in the middle.
Bald Man
April 20th, 2006 12:38 am
Perhaps you should hold off on the RSS ads. You’re changing two variables at once, which will make it harder to measure the impact of either one. you won’t know which changes are a result of publishing a full post feed and which are a result of the RSS ads.
I recommend a poll :D
Cary
April 20th, 2006 1:08 am
And the big question, Darren: are you doing this across your more commercial blogs as well?
Jon Heizer
April 20th, 2006 5:59 am
Not much of a change for me really. I use thunderbird for RSS and have it set to open the site linked by default. I got tired of reading blan rss when I could see the actual page if I waited 2 seconds. Sounds like everyone else likes it though.
Steven Frein
April 20th, 2006 3:40 pm
Thanks Darren. I have always promoted full text feeds and as a reader it is much appriciated. I think I will get more content from your site now that I don’t have to skim through and judge if a partial text feed is worth my time….
Mike Schnoor
April 20th, 2006 4:51 pm
Finally you’ve made the right choice, Darren. As far as I can tell, I’ve always skipped through the first couple of lines of your feed before simply MARKING IT AS READ. While reading through my own about 300 subscriptions, I have little time in reading summaries. I end up reading the full content, and not just a few lines without getting to the whole topic at all.
Because I usually scanned through your headlines, I usually found nothing that kept me attracted for more than 5 minutes. But by now, I’ve already read five of your posts in the feed reader without skipping yet. And of course I clicked at your site to comment… ;)
Quick Online Tips
April 20th, 2006 8:49 pm
Great to read your full feeds now. Just to let you know that the “Copyright Problogger Blog Tips” copyright feedflare was developed by me. Nice to see it at work on your feed.
Blaine Moore (Run to Win)
April 20th, 2006 10:55 pm
Darren,
Thanks for the full feed. One problem that I notice, however, is that when I click on the feedburner permalink, it no longer redirects me to the correct page. Instead, it brings me to your RSS page at feedburner, where I have to scroll through the list to find the post that I am looking for which is a bit annoying. I don’t know if I am the only one having this problem or not but it is a bit annoying.
James
April 21st, 2006 4:59 am
Hi Darren, Just wanted to say that after a long hiatus I have resubscribed to your blog in my bloglines account. I visit your website regularly and also keep tabs on it through the newsletter you send out, but the thing that swung it for me was your decision to publish full RSS feeds. Many thanks!
Darren Rowse
April 21st, 2006 8:38 am
welcome back James - nice to have you :-)
quaisi
April 21st, 2006 3:59 pm
Yay!
When I click on post`s title to get to the website itself it displays the feedburner`s feed page instead of the post.
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